I learned how poor the range of our radios was the first time I got stuck in an elevator. We were only trapped for about 10 minutes or so but in those 10 minutes I learned I had a crippling case of claustrophobia. Being trapped made that tiny little room feel like a coffin. The only scenarios I could imagine involved never getting out, as if we had gotten stuck because of an apocalyptic event that had also wiped out any possibility of rescue. You don’t even need an apocalyptic event to be frantic. One woman in China died because she had gotten stuck in an elevator and no one had looked for her.

Not long after, I watched an old French movie called Elevator to the Gallows which has a malfunctioning elevator as a central theme. After these two experiences I decided to do some research on elevator mechanics, vowing to always carry the tools with me that could get me out of a broken elevator. To my horror, I discovered that there is nothing I could bring that would be of any help. Not even that occasional hatch in the ceiling could be an option as it can’t be accessed from the inside (now you know too). You are completely at the mercy of your rescuers. This is terrifying to a new self-diagnosed claustrophobe in a city of tall buildings.

Now that I’m a lieutenant, unless there’s a pressing need for me to hurry, I’m taking the stairs whenever possible. My crews know when I enter a lobby and they’re waiting for the lift that I’ll meet them upstairs. Many believe it has to do with the Fitbit on my wrist and my obsessive need to get my steps in, but the real reason is irrational fear, mostly. Especially now, since technology has greatly improved the capabilities of our radios and cellphones so that the conditions that led to most of my fears have been alleviated, although some still do exist.

Not long after I watched the French movie, I was on a call in a tall building. I had gone back downstairs to get some things from the ambulance. The patient was probably going to RMA [refuse medical assistance] and we wanted another EKG. We had needed inconsequential things, like more electrodes and another PCR (pre-hospital care report, which in those days was paper). I had grabbed nothing important that could have been used as a tool or a weapon. I was in the elevator by myself pushing the ‘close’ button when a man got in as the doors were closing. He gave me a dirty look and said “I saw you hit the close button on me.”

“I didn’t see you,” I said.

“I don’t believe you.” When he got in, despite all the available room, he chose a spot right next to me. I moved away.

He then started looking at me in a way that made me very uncomfortable. As he stared at me through his thick glasses I noticed he had a large red stain on his grey shirt that was hard not to look at questionably. He stared at me as if he had tasted something awful and was considering spitting it out. I looked ahead and hoped it wasn’t the blood from a previous victim on that shirt.

We shared an awkward silence until the elevator jumped slightly and then refused to move. Panic immediately set in. My new roommate gave me another look of disgust, as if I were to blame. I tried very hard to pretend I wasn’t imagining that this loser was going to be the last person I would see before dying of starvation when no one came to get us. I tried hitting the button for the floor we were on but nothing happened. I hit a few other buttons on the wall (not all together, another tip I had learned). None of them did anything. The emergency button did, however, produce a short lived alarm. There’s supposed to be a phone in the elevator panel somewhere that you can use to summon help but this one didn’t seem to have one. The man, I suppose it’s human nature, also tried hitting some of the buttons. When he tried the emergency button there was no alarm. He gave out a big “oh that’s great” and looked at me as if my attempt had broken it. I tried calling someone, anyone, on my radio but there was no success. He stepped sideways to get closer to me. I stepped forward to get away.

He got directly in front of me, seriously invading my personal space. I could smell his awful breath. “I’ve got asthma,” said the man.

“Congratulations,” I replied, backing off.

“No really,” he said. “Right now. Look.” He proceeded to hyperventilate. He was a little taller than me and overweight. He had browinish-blond hair in a strange kind of wave pattern all over his head. His thick glasses had wire frames and the little nose pieces were dirty enough for me to see, thanks to his incessant need to stand close.

“You’re hyperventilating,” I told him.

“No I’m not,” he said in a perfectly non-breathless sentence. “No, it’s asthma. Do something. Give me some of that stuff.” He gave me a look that said he meant business.

“I don’t have my bag,” I said, pointing out the obvious. “It’s upstairs.” He immediately stopped hyperventilating. The uncomfortable creepy vibe he gave off was setting off alarm bells with my already heightened fear instincts. I didn’t want him to think I was afraid and holding it together was maddening given how the stuck elevator situation was more than enough stress for me without having to worry about who I was trapped with.

He then moved slightly closer to me. I jumped away. “What the hell!” I yelled. “Stop it. You stay over there, and I’m going to stay over here.”

I took my radio and tried again. I switched channels and also tried using the point to point feature. I used every frequency. Nothing worked. I had a cell phone but the range in those days was also questionable in such a small space and I had no signal. But signals varied depending on carriers and I could see a phone sticking out of my neighbor’s pocket.

“Try your phone,” I asked.

“I don’t have one,” he snipped at me, using a very different voice. “You’re some real privileged bitch if you think everyone has a phone. Fuck you.” I was mortified.

“What’s that in your pocket?” I asked.

“My phone.”

I felt that I was starting to hyperventilate myself so I tried to concentrate on a fixed point on the wall. I tried to reassure myself that my partner upstairs wouldn’t leave me here, that he had probably already called the firemen who would be here in no time to break open the door. People must be waiting in the lobby who would also call. Help must be on the way, right? I just needed to keep my eye on the crazy person I had no way of getting away from. No possible way of escape. I told myself that I was pretty strong. I could take him, I thought to myself. I knew the idea was a bit inaccurate. For some reason, crazy people, when they’re fighting you, possess an unfathomable amount of strength that has nothing to do with their size or conditioning. I have had a lot of experience in these matters. I remembered a 16 year old girl on my first EMT rotation, who weighed possibly 95 lbs at most, who put three police officers and one of the EMTs I was riding with in the hospital with serious injuries. This guy was taller than me. What would I do if he tried something? I had a rolled up piece of paper and some electrodes. Oh wait, I also had my pen, my beloved gel pen in my pocket. Could I use it as a stabbing instrument if he attacked me? It would probably break. It was plastic, cheap disposable plastic. Everything is made to break and be disposable, what a sign of our times. I wondered what he was capable of. What about that stain? Yes, what about the stain…Had he just returned from killing someone? No, you’re just imagining that. It’s more likely a food stain. A very large food stain. Because he’s a big doofus and he always spills things, probably. He gets stains on himself because he stands too close to people with food and it ends up on him when he invades their personal space. He invades everyone’s personal space, not just mine. Right?

Suddenly he started screaming. He screamed the way a person does when they’re on a roller coaster or running from an ax murderer. But his screaming had a distinct feminine tone to it. Was he mocking me? What kind of psychological games was this guy playing?

Then, he suddenly stopped and in the most casual way he turned to me, as if he had just thought of a great idea and said, “If I pick you up, you can get out through the hatch! All you’d have to do is climb the wires to the next floor and get help!” He stepped over to me a little.

“It’s not going to work,” I told him as I stepped away. “I watched this French movie once, about an elevator and…”

“You just don’t want to.” He cut short my movie synopsis and lead in about the futility of self rescue in an elevator.

“Well, yeah, that too. But still, it wouldn’t work. Plus there’s no hatch.” The idea of this guy picking me up made me cringe. He had better not try.

He looked up. “There has to be a hatch. Every elevator has a hatch to escape from.”

“No,” I told him. “Only in the movies.”

He looked at me in disgust again. Good. Stay away, creep. I checked my watch. Seven minutes had elapsed. Seven stupid minutes. My God, how long would I be trapped? I tried my radio. Nothing. Ugh. There has to be some way to get through. The creepy guy took out his phone.

“Oh,” I said snarkily. “Look at that. A phone. What a privileged life you lead.”

He ignored me as he punched some buttons. “Yeah,” he said loudly. “I’m stuck in an elevator with this mean, nasty paramedic girl. Yes, she’s a bad person. A real bad person. She won’t climb the wires to get us out of here. Real selfish. She doesn’t care. A real meany. Meany, meany, meany.” It was obvious to me he hadn’t talked to anyone. Not anyone human, anyway.

“Who’d you call? Your kindergarten teacher?”

He glared at me. “I was right though.”

“You are.” Hopefully he thought I was dangerous too. “Usually I am very nice.” I let him know.

“Yeah, right. And I’m normal.” He really said that. At least we were both on the same page with that.

We stood awkwardly around for a few minutes when our stupid dance started again, where he invaded my personal space and I got it back.

“I think you should climb the wires and get help. It’s obvious no one is coming to save us.”

“Hold on, there. It’s only been a few minutes. And I don’t know how to explain this to you but there is no hatch. Look up. Where do you see a hatch?”

“There’s got to be a hatch. I’m sure the ceiling is like a panel that is covering it. Come on, I’d do it myself but I don’t think you can lift me. There has to be a hatch. There has to be a way out. What if there was a nuclear attack and all the rescuers were dead. How the hell would we get out?”

Yeah! He gets it! This kid was on my wavelength with me! Again! We were both imagining claustrophobic scenarios! It changed nothing, actually, about his creepiness but it made me feel a little better, somehow.

And then, as if our similar thought patterns had meshed and created an electrical field large enough to revive the elevator, we felt a few more bumps and it started moving again!

A massive sigh of relief fell over us as the doors opened to my floor. The man got out too, despite having pressed a button for a floor higher. I felt that he too would become a stair-walking enthusiast.

As he opened to the door to the fire exit he asked me, “What’s the name of that movie?”

“Elevator to the Gallows,” I told him.

“Thanks,” he said. “And I’m sorry. I’ve got claustrophobia.”

“No problem. So do I.”

“So that’s why you were so nasty. I understand.”

“Thanks,” I told him. “Sorry.”

I got back to the apartment where our job was, with my stupid, useless electrodes and my stupid, useless PCR. I walked through the door feeling a little drained, a little relieved. I wondered if my partner would be there. I figured he’d be in the lobby waiting for the firemen. I guess we could cancel them now. But he was there, nonchalantly sitting with the patient.

“What took you so long?” my partner asked. A few more minutes and I was going to go downstairs and get the stuff myself.”

Please note, the movie, Elevator to the Gallows provides no meaningful solutions for escaping a stuck elevator, at all. But it’s an interesting movie on it’s own.

Here are some links about being trapped in an elevator:

https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/man-trapped-elevator-41-hours/story?id=4693690

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/woman-dies-in-elevator-china_n_56dd2134e4b0ffe6f8e9d56c

https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/stuck-elevator-article-1.2696361